Birmingham News: Tuberville out at Auburn

Thanks Armchair - I just spit a stream of Redman juice onto my screen.

In your diolog you forgot to add:

"We looked like a bunch of faaags running that spread offense. That's not football."

 

Tuberville won't be unemployed for long.

 

My guess is he sits out next year and comes back.

 

I use this analogy with Tuberville. When he weathered Jetgate and had the support of all the Auburn fans, he settled some old scores with some of the boosters who tried to overthrow him.

He rubbed a lot of the big-time booster folks the wrong way and they were lying in wait like lions in the Serengeti grass to pounce. The surprise factor comes from the fact the guy is just one year removed from beating his archrival SIX years in a row.

Every year, Auburn is in the thick of the SEC West race, despite being the second-fiddle school in the state. Tubbs has been the best coach to walk the sidelines at Auburn. He's run a clean program, recruited well (except for quarterbacks) and had a enviable record for any coach, let alone one that is a clear second to the Crimson crowd in cachet. The only thing stopping him for a possible national title in 2004 was a total hosejob by the BCS.

Hiring Franklin was not, of itself, bad. Not hiring other assistants with spread offense experience was an egregious error. However, going to the spread seemed to smack of desperation. It seemed to say "we're doing this so we can recruit more wideouts and quarterbacks because our cross-state rival is kicking our asses." It made no sense. Since Auburn usually had a small, fast, feisty defense, their power-oriented I-attack was the perfect counterpart because they normally could run the football and grind the clock. Going to a spread would mean quicker scores (or in the case of the Spread Eagle, no scores) and less rest for a defense that wore down as the season went along.

Is one bad season grounds for termination? You'd think 10 years, plenty of bowl wins and an SEC title would buy you more time than one year. Not so on the Plains.

The question is: where does this firing rate on the list of stupid terminations? It's got to be up there with Solich as one of the dumbest firings ever. One that was forgotten was Jeff Bower at Southern Miss. He leads them to a seven or eight win season every year with a shot at the C-USA title and a berth in a smaller bowl and he gets canned because his style of football isn't exciting. Larry Fedora moves in and they win six games and are headed to the New Orleans Bowl, leaving them in the same spot as with Bower.

The difference is that Bower was a lifer at Southern and would have stayed there forever. Fedora will taste success and be gone for the next best thing. Smart move, USM.

The whole problem is unreasonable expectations. How much CAN you do at Auburn? I think Tuberville took the Tigers as far as they could possibly go. Would a new coach be able to do better? In a few years, you'll find, probably not. Same with the USM situation. Seven to eight wins at USM is a good year and nine to 10 is exceptional. USM isn't going to be competing for a BCS bowl unless it's in a rare, fluky sort of year.

 

Tuberville is easily one of the best 10 coaches in college football and I wouldn't argue with anyone who had him in their top five.

This is a stupid, stupid move.

 

Yea, that seems impossible if for no other reason than the state of Michigan under Rick-Rod
Still, say Sweatervest went 7-5 and won a bowl game next year and followed it up with 8-4 and lost a bowl game (giving him ten losses in two years). And say he loses to Michigan in that last year. You think he's gone? Really?
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No, like Cooper, the losing would have to be coupled with a string of losses to Michigan in order for anything to go down. It's a matter of losing (which sucks) and losing the game that really matters, which in some programs is the ultimate sin.

Up in my neighborhood, Mike Price took Washington State to two Rose Bowls in six years. That is a mind-boggling achievement and he will always be remembered fondly. BUT, for many Cougar fans his defining trait is an inability to beat Washington, even in his best years. When he left for his infamous five months at Alabama, there were plenty of people who were upset, but at least as many who said, "we lost to Washington with him, we can lose to Washington without him."

 

Mike Sherman should be worried.

 

Why? The Vikings will probably hire him after they fire Childress. ;D

 

Agreed.

 

This is one of the worst moves ever. They're going to grossly overpay to get someone like Petrino or Leach and then run them off if they're not successful in 2-3 years.

I'm guessing the next five years are going to be really ugly at Auburn.

 

Auburn AD Jay Jacobs just went on TV and said they didn't fire Tuberville, he quit. But apparently they have decided to continue to pay him regardless. So my question: Is Jacobs

A) making the stupidest decision an AD has ever made by continuing to pay Tubs after he quits,

B) lying through his teeth, or

C) totally clueless as to what really happened and just saying what someone told him to say?

 

Agreed - its going to be ugly.

Can't see Leech going there. These people have already demonstrated that they are too dumb to understand the spread.